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After the baby is born, it will grow up in another environment completely different from the situation inside the mother's body. The neonatal period within one month of birth is the most important period for the baby to adapt itself to the new environment. It might encounter some physical difficulties, so the special care is necessary.

Silence
Except for feeding time, newborns sleep for most of the time. Therefore, the baby room should be keep clean and quiet. It is not necessary to avoid all sounds, baby will adapt to adequate sounds required for hearing development.

Keep warm
Newborn has a poor ability for thermoregulation. Parents should pay attention to the baby's temperature. The temperature in baby room should remain around 25-28 Celcius with cares of indoor air circulation.

Clothes
The choice of baby clothes should be based on soft, gentle and fade-proof materials. Avoid the use of flammable nylon material. The best clothes is cotton-made underwear which is irritation free and sweat-absorbent. The style of clothes must be simple, too tight or too loose will impede baby’s activities.

Change diapers
Change diapers immediately after baby urinates or defecates, wash the butt with warm water and dry it gently with cotton towels.

Bath
Bath baby every day. Except for keeping clean and comfortable, you can observe if there is abnormality of the body, such as rash, ecchymosis, trauma and etc. and enhance the parent-child relationship. The best bathing time is half hour before feeding or a hour after feeding to avoid spit-ups. Choose the higher temperatures during the day (about 10am to 2 pm), the indoor temperature should be warm (about 26-29 Celcius) with appropriate water temperature. Put the cold water first and follow by hot water（37.5-39 Celcius）, you can check with the inner side of wrist. Once you feel it warm but not hot, you can bath the baby. Appropriate duration is around 5~10 minutes. Avoid bathing water getting into the ears for the prevention of otitis. Clean external ear with small swabs after bath. Do not put swabs into the depths of noses or ears.
Note : Do not leave the baby alone in the tub to prevent accidents in bath.

Umbilical cord care
Purpose：Prevent umbilical infection. Make it dry and fall off soon. Observe if there is bleeding and abnormal situations. Umbilical cord will usually fall off in 7-14 days after birth. Before it falls off, provide at least once umbilical cord care after each bath. But if the umbilical cord is wet or smelly, it will require few more cares and keep it dry. When the area around umbilical cord is reddish and bleeding, the fall-off wound is not healed with growing granuloma and smells, you should consult a doctor.

Umbilical cord disinfection solution： 75% alcohol and 95% alcohol.
Disinfection: First, dry the umbilical part with small swabs after bath. Then moisten a small swab with disinfectant solution. Use thumb and index finger to press against the navel to smoothen the wrinkles, and perform the disinfection 1~2 times by circling from inside to outside of the umbilical part.

Diapers should cover upon the umbilical cord. Avoid the infection caused by wetness. Perform the umbilical cord care if it gets wet by urine accidentally

Avoid infections
Because baby has a low resistance to infections, you should wash hands before touching the baby or preparing baby's food. Do not let baby get close to anyone with contagious diseases, such as patients with colds. Never kiss baby on the lips to avoid contagious diseases.

Measure temperature
Because the thermoregulatory center of the newborn is not yet stable, so the variation is influenced easily by the external environment. In general, it can be as low as 36.1 Celcius, or as high as 37.7 Celcius. The part to measure baby's temperature is anus. If there is special conditions, such as diarrhea, anal polyps, measure the axillary temperature. Generally body temperature should be measured once every day before bathing. If you observe that baby's face is red, limbs are cold and trembling, you should measure it at any time.

Dental care－prevent bottle tooth decay

 

How to treat bottle tooth decay？
When bottle tooth decay worsens to certain extent, it will cause toothache. In minor condition, the cavities can be filled. When it gets severe, there will be inflammation or even facial swelling, root canal therapy or tooth extraction must be performed. Serious bottle tooth decay will cause diet inconvenience, affect the pronunciation and even the future arrangement of permanent teeth. Especially the patient with bottle tooth decay is little, this will increase the difficulties of treatment by the pediatric dentist. Therefore, how to prevent bottle tooth decay is significantly important.

How to prevent bottle tooth decay？
By the baby is born, it is better to feed it completely within 20 minutes. Hold it for feeding whether with milk or breast milk. Before the growth of teeth, take wet gauze or towel to wipe off the milk residue inside the mouth every time after feeding. After the teeth are growing, you can start using soft bristled toothbrush to brush baby's teeth. Establish a good and solid habit from early childhood. When the baby is 6~9 months old, use cup to drink milk gradually. When the children are 6 months to 1 year old, milk teeth has been erupting and you should take them to pediatric dentist for checkups.

Toilet training

Training timing

Between 18－24 months, children has been able to control the anal sphincter. Around 1 year and 3 months old or 1 and half years old, the bladder can store the urine till urinating, but it does not mean that they can control themselves. Usually, when they are 18~24 months old, they start to feel the fullness of bladder, this is the best timing for urine training.

Training steps

In the training process, the attitude of parents should be nice, easy, natural and not be too strict, so as not to increase the troubles and bring pressure to the children. Before the children learn to express themselves, when they wet or soil the pants, you have to tell them clearly "baby wet the bed" or “baby defecated”. Use the children’s nature of imitation, let them observe how the older children or adults use toilets, it can also be demonstrated by puppets. When the training begins, stop wrap children in diapers, let them wear the pants ease pull down, and prepare few more. When children tell their parents about wetting the bed, take them to the toilet potty with assistance or try to let them take care of it. When they urinate smoothly, give them encouragement and praise. Children fail sometimes, do not scold them and just repeat instructions. If the training has lasted 10 days or half a moth and it did not work out. It shows that children is not yet mature physiologically. You can suspend it for a while and get restarted all over again. Do not indicate that the children's excrement are dirty or disgusting. Let the children learn how to use different equipment for urinating or defecating in different environments.

Neonatal FAQs

Milk regurgitation or vomit

Prevention and handling：Prevent newborn from exhaling the air in order to avoid milk regurgitation when it belch after feeding. After the vomit, clean it up and raise its head and back or let it lie on the right side.

Jaundice

The jaundice of the newborn is due to the immaturity of liver and gallbladder, the large amounts of destroyed red blood cells cannot be rule out and result in excess load of bilirubin metabolism. Normally, jaundice occurs in newborns in 2~3 days after birth, reaches the peak in 4~5 days and disappears in 7~10 days gradually. This is a normal symptom, known as Physiological jaundice.
NOTE：If the jaundice is not serious, supplement with more water and get discharged from urine and stools. It is necessary to observe baby's skin color, activity and food intake after discharge. You can hold the baby under the sun or daylight, gently press the forehead, nose and cheeks by fingertips and cheek whether the skin looks more yellow. If it does not disappear after 10 days, you should seek medical treatment as soon as possible.

Whitehead

It occurs at birth, spreads especially around the nose with white rash. It is caused by blocked sebaceous gland. Therefore, they will disappear gradually within a few weeks on their own without any treatment.

Prickly heat

The only prevention of prickly heat is to avoid sweating. In order to achieve this goal, baby need to wear loose and sweat-absorbent clothing without wearing too much and keep airflow smoothly in the environment.

Red butt

Reason：Hip is wrapped by diapers through frequent stimulation of urine and stools. Some babies' skins are more sensitive, the red butt is caused easily.

Symptoms: Extensive erythema around anus and perineum with reddening or small blisters or even suppuration. Some surfaces are rough as brown papers with redness, peeling and etc.

Note: Frequently changes the diapers. Wash part of skin and keep dry after urine and stools. If using cloth diapers, avoid the use of detergent and bleach, wash with soap and get disinfected and dry under the sun. In order to keep the affected area dry, avoid smearing baby powder on the affected area, which will increase the stimulation of the affected area, let it expose to the hot and dry state. When the symptoms did not disappear, seek medical treatment.

Eczema

If newborns wear too many clothes, get coated and sweat a lot in the hot and humid climate, the heat rash and sweat gland inflammation are easily caused. Eczema occurs in the head, neck, hips, hair and other parts with large or small red nodules or transparent rash, and it even gets worse for suppuration. So It is important to keep dry, wear appropriate, sweat-absorb and ventilative clothes. if suppuration occurs, you should consult a doctor.

Thrush

It is a kind of oral minor fungal infection. Looks like milk block but difficult to remove. It will affect the milk intake to newborns. The prevention is to pay attention to oral hygiene.

Newborn Screening
Newborn screening is short for newborn congenital metabolic disorders screening. The purpose is to discover early those children suffering from congenital metabolic disorders after birth and give them treatment early. Let the ill children develop normally as much as possible to reduce the disability caused by diseases.

From July 1st 2006, Department of Health increased new screening projects to 11 items. Usually, the fed newborns after 48 hours will have checkups by taking a heel blood sample. The result will complete in a month. Institutions will inform you of re-examination if there is any problems, no notice if it is normal.